As an officer of the II Corps, he was stationed in Salonica where he developed political sympathies for the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) reformers.

In the course of his army career Cemal developed a rivalry with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, served in Salonica on the frontlines of the Balkan Wars and was given the military command of Constantinople after the Raid on the Sublime Porte.

[1] Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 he became a member of the central committee (Merkezi Umum-i) of the CUP and later was deployed as a Kaymakam to Üsküdar, Constantinople.

He then resigned to rejoin the army in the Balkan Wars on the Salonica front line, attempting to protect Turkey's European possessions.

At the end of the First Balkan War, he played an important role in the propaganda drawn up by the CUP against negotiations with the victorious European countries.

Djemal played a significant role in the Second Balkan War, and with the revolution of the CUP on 23 January 1913, he became the commander of Constantinople and was appointed Minister of Public Works.

Nevertheless, he agreed in early October 1914 to use his ministerial powers to authorise Admiral Souchon to launch a pre-emptive strike in the Black Sea, which led to Russia, Britain and France declaring war on the Ottoman Empire a few days later.

Coupled with the wartime exigencies and natural disasters that afflicted the region during these years, this alienated the population from the Ottoman government, and led to the Arab Revolt.

In his political memoirs, the leader of the "Beirut Reform Movement" Salim Ali Salam recalls the following: Jamal Pasha resumed his campaign of vengeance; he began to imprison most Arab personalities, charging them with treason against the State.

These secret negotiations came to nothing, in part because the Allies reportedly could not agree on the future territory of the Ottoman Empire; France objected strongly, and Britain was unwilling to fund the imperial operations.

Djemal refused to compromise his advantageous position, and strafed enemy attempts by the Tigris Corps to take relief boats up river.

The Ottoman troops fought hard at the Battle of Ctesiphon, but the subsequent fate of POWs and civilians later enhanced Djemal Pasha's wartime reputation as a capricious and cruel general.

Nonetheless, the successes impressed T. E. Lawrence to write a significant account of their diplomatic encounters when finally Kut fell in April 1916, which provides for "a colourful character".

Kressenstein was delighted to have repelled the British assault and wanted to mobilise aggressively by driving into Shellal, Wadi Ghazze, and Khan Yunis, but Djemal absolutely forbade it.

Djemal was completely committed to the Turko-German military machine, which he saw as necessary to resist the new wave of offensives launched by the British High Command.

It was not until October 1917 that the Seventh Army could march south to face the growing threat from Edmund Allenby, hampered by the limitations of the single-gauge railway, which was built away from the coastline to avoid Royal Navy salvos.

[23] But now the Turkish Eighth formed a much stronger line of entrenchment; Djemal's organized defence of Gaza had been amply anticipated by the British.

On 6 December, Djemal Pasha was in Beirut to make a speech publicizing the allied deal to 'carve up' Syria-Palestine into partitioned spheres of influence in the Sykes-Picot agreement.

To the south of Nebi Samwell were the defences of Beit Iksa; the Heart and Liver Redoubts before Lifa; and Deir Yassin, two systems behind Ain Karim.

In December 1915, he offered to the Entente powers that he would march to Constantinople, overthrow the CUP government, and end the genocide in exchange for the guarantee of the Ottoman Empire's territorial integrity in its pre-World War I borders.

[27] Historian Ümit Kurt argues that "The most fundamental difference between Cemal and the other two leaders [Talat and Enver] was the methods he wanted to employ to decrease the number of Armenians to a level that would no longer pose a threat to the Ottoman state."

With the defeat of the empire in October 1918 and the resignation of Talaat Pasha's cabinet on 2 November 1918, Djemal fled[29] with seven other leaders of the CUP to Germany, and then Switzerland.

A military court in Turkey accused Djemal of massacring Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire and sentenced him to death in absentia.

[30] Due to the success of the Bolshevik Revolution, Djemal traveled to Tiflis to act as a military liaison officer to negotiate over Afghanistan with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In Syria and Lebanon, 6 May is Martyrs' Day, a national holiday that commemorates the execution of seven Syrians in Damascus and 14 in Beirut by Djemal Pasha for their collaboration with the British and French at the height of WWI.

The French and British had promised arms and financing for some Syrians and Lebanese actors with the ultimate independence and statehood status, provided they revolt and sabotage the Ottoman war effort.